Harder Every Day
by Surreptitious Chi X
Summary: Drabble. Doing his job gets harder for Ebisu every day. People know almost nothing about him, and that's the way he likes it, because if they could see right through him, they'd know the one thing he doesn't want anyone to know: he doesn't want to be a shinobi. Edit: Now a drabble series.
1. Harder Every Day

**Harder Every Day**

* * *

The truth was, Ebisu was a generally gentle person. This fact was humiliating for a shinobi who had fought through a world war alongside a human meat-grinder like Gai. But there it was. As soon as the war was over, as soon as he possibly could, Ebisu scrambled to attain the status of Tokubetsu Jonin and get out of the active battle roster altogether. Becoming a tutor to those who would go out and kill was the closest he would ever come to admitting he just didn't have the constitution to be a ninja.

His father had been the sort of person who insisted people use their talents. Temperament was beside the point. It was beside the point that his son cried easily, hated pain, and went into spasms of agonizing guilt every time he hurt another living creature. His father blamed all of these traits on his mother and vowed to teach him better.

The result? Graduating at age eight, being put on a team with Gai (whom he despised) and Genma (whom he despised much less, but still couldn't stand), and being a nervous wreck. Hiding behind sunglasses and being as prudish and standoffish towards everyone else was a good way to hide the fact that he was miserable, and simply wanted to get out of the ninja business altogether.

Though anyone with half a brain noticed he was miserable anyway. Like Iruka. Iruka was one of the only people who never gave Ebisu a hard time. They worked together, in that Iruka often referred students to him for polishing up. And Ebisu tried to do his best to ignore the nausea that cramped his stomach whenever he thought about the fact that he was taking these sweet-faced, enthusiastic children and turning them into killing machines.

But it was hard, and it was getting harder every day.


	2. Sunglasses

**Author's Note:** This has now become a place to put all my drabble-length scenes about Ebisu's character.

* * *

**Sunglasses**

* * *

"Sunglasses."

"What?" Ebisu rubbed his eyes, sniffling self-consciously. He'd just finished telling his father how they'd been told in school they had to be ready to kill without emotion, and just recounting the horrible things the teacher had said put him in tears again, and he'd begged and begged to be let out of school and just be something else – anything but a ninja – and he'd been waiting for his father's response.

He did not see how anything he said could have prompted his father's response to be 'sunglasses'.

"Sunglasses. That's the solution." He father snapped his fingers. "I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere."

Ebisu stood self-consciously in his father's study and let his father leave the room. His father's study was a refuge away from his mom and him, but also his father's job. It was traditional for the most part, with a kotatsu table and a woven straw mat, wall scrolls and earthenware pottery on display. But it also had a desk, and a computer – a rare luxury for anyone outside of the Daimyo's family to have, but necessary because his father was in the Codebreaking Division. Somehow, the chunky machine was responsible for aiding his father's work with encryption and information gathering.

His father returned, making Ebisu jump. "I found them. Here." He shoved the sunglasses on, knocking them against Ebisu's nose and hooking them behind Ebisu's ears. Then he stood back and gauged the effect.

Ebisu squinted through the smoky lenses. Everything was three shades darker and discolored.

His father nodded in satisfaction, folding his arms across his chest. "This'll fix the problem."

Ebisu fidgeted. Finally, he had to ask. "D…Dad?"

"Yes, son?"

"What problem?"

"Your problem," his father said. "Your problem at school."

"Sunglasses?" Ebisu adjusted the glasses. They were uncomfortable. And slipping down. He pushed them further up on the bridge of his nose, unwilling to take them off and disobey the implicit order his father had given him to wear them.

"You told me that when the teacher described your duty as a ninja, you cried," his father said, looking mildly concerned. "And when you told the story, you cried again." He pointed. "So the sunglasses will hide your eyes."

"I don't understand," Ebisu protested, even though he had a horrible feeling in his chest that he did understand.

"If you hide your eyes, it's less likely that others will know you've cried. If you turn your head away, and look like you're in thought, you can get away with shedding a few tears and no one will be the wiser," his father said. "Practice it." He sighed and rested his hands on Ebisu's shoulders. "I know I can't ask you not to cry. You've already explained that it's an involuntary action. But the next best thing is to cover it up. Right? Ninjas are good at doing secret things. So don't look like you're crying and you'll be alright."

Ebisu opened his mouth and shut it again. "So I have to be a ninja?" he asked weakly.

His father sighed. "Son, you are my only son, my heir, and the heir to this clan. I have explained this before: to continue our clan, you must become a ninja. Now, you have inherited all of our clan's talents and brains, so you have nothing to worry about. Your mother may be weak, but she's not the only genetic legacy that you have. So you'll be fine." He squeezed Ebisu's shoulders. "Just fine. I promise you that. This is a phase you'll grow out of, and then you'll grow up to be a great ninja."

Ebisu wanted to throw up.

But he wore the sunglasses all afternoon and through dinner, and he wore the sunglasses to school the next day, and no one commented about them, so he wore the sunglasses every day…and pretty soon they just became a part of his face. And without anyone being able to read his eyes, his misery looked like a frown of determination.

His father called it a vast improvement.

He was always having to push them back up, since the sunglasses never wanted to stay in place, but pretty soon that became a trademark of his, too.

Everyone adjusted to the new Ebisu, to the boy who always wore sunglasses and never seemed to cry. Even his mother, who called him 'very grown up'.

Everyone seemed to have forgotten about _him_.


	3. The Last Straw

**The Last Straw**

* * *

It's hard to believe what Gai's just done.

Ebisu finds it hard to believe, anyway.

Gai stands before the fallen body, bending down over it, and pokes the man with an investigative finger. "Huh? I guess he's dead."

"What do you mean, you guess he's dead?" The scream is out of Ebisu's throat before he can think, on his way stomping over to the body, his movements so forceful he has to stop and push the sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose or they'll fall off.

He smacks Gai across the face.

Gai immediately recoils, rubbing his cheek with wide eyes.

Ebisu crouches down and pulls out the kunai, then starts his healing jutsu, muttering under his breath because he just can't stay silent, if he tries to keep it all inside his chest is going to explode and then what will happen when Gai does something very, very stupid? "I can't believe you would attack someone we needed to bring back alive you're such an idiot I don't know how I can stand you you're such an idiot!"

"He surprised me," Gai protests.

The man coughs and wakes up, his eyelids flickering.

"Stay still," Ebisu tells him in a matter-of-fact voice. It seems to work on most people; sounding like you knew what you were doing. "You're going to be alright. I need to finish sealing your lungs back up and get all the blood out before you can breathe again normally." He does his job, and then helps the man up, still seething.

"Ah, you're alright," Gai says. He grins, of all things, and rubs the back of his head. "Sorry about that."

Ebisu rounds on him and smacks him across the face again. "Don't you ever do something like that again! Ever!"

Gai rubs his left cheek, which is now just as red as his right. Matching slap marks stand out brightly on either side of his face. "Ebi-kun –"

"Don't call me Ebi-kun, you monster!" Ebisu is tempted to kick Gai in the ankle, but he doesn't. Violence should not beget violence, no matter how tempting it is. Breaking Gai's ankle would cross a line he's not comfortable with. It's shameful how easily slapping someone as hard as he can comes to him.

In the fray, Genma quietly comes in and ties the man up before he can get away.

"Our mission said alive!" Ebisu yells. "Bring him back alive! What about the word 'alive' offends you, Maito-san?"

Gai wilts under the coldness of Ebisu's address.

Ebisu turns away, unwilling to let Gai's puppy-dog expression sway him. "I want off this team. I want off this team, off this team, right now."

"Relax," Genma drawls.  
"I will not."

And that is the last mission he runs with those two jokers. The moment they get back from their mission and report their success to Sandaime, Ebisu goes down the hall and fills out the test for Tokubetsu Jonin. He passes.


	4. Trust

**Trust**

* * *

Ebisu hated teaching the gentle children the most. The children like him. The ones that cringed in spite of themselves and lost chakra in their punches because they were instinctively trying not to hurt their instructors. The children that were poor at chakra-shaping because they thought too much about what a fireball would do to someone if it actually landed a hit with any accuracy.

Unfortunately, he saw a lot of the gentle ones. They were usually the ninjas in need of the most tutoring.

It hurt most when the child was smart, like him. Then it was like looking in a mirror, and he was suddenly one of the many people who had torn him down over the years.

The genin sensei who had told him that unless he killed, he would be allowing a murderer to come into his house at night and snap his father's neck, stab his mother to death.

The Chunin Exam proctor who had told him that if he got squeamish about killing another student in the Forest of Death, then he could just let a giant centipede or a rabid wolf kill him.

The enemy ninja from Iwa who had almost, almost captured his whole team, who had threatened to make him watch while his teammates were tortured, until he gave up the encoded message he'd memorized.

Standing over the others, his father, who had told him every time he wavered that he was the heir to the Tonda clan, the only male child of the family in his generation, including the branch family, and that if he didn't become a ninja and rise through the ranks, the Tonda clan would die.

When Ebisu saw these weak, shivering students, choking back their tears, he thought of his father, of his teachers, of the merciless enemies. They lingered over his students like ghosts.

And he thought of taking off his sunglasses, and showing them that he was scared too. He thought of being that kind of teacher. A teacher like Iruka. Someone his students could grow with and trust in.

But he couldn't take off his sunglasses and show his students how weak he was. He was too terrified of crumbling without them. After all these years, his sunglasses were the only thing holding back the tide of panic and pain. He'd seen how ninjas of his generation fared. Most of them were dead or crazy. And he was no Iruka.

It was better if no one put their trust in him.


	5. Suicide

**Suicide**

* * *

Marriage. He's terrified of it.

His father told him time and time again the only person who has ever truly seen under his mask is his wife, Ebisu's mother. Only she knows all of his insecurities and weaknesses, his flaws and his nightmares. And she has been sworn to secrecy as a good, loyal wife, who would never leave him or judge him.

_Dear god,_ Ebisu thinks every time he looks in the mirror. _How am I supposed to find someone like that? I can't even find someone who doesn't detest me. _

The closest thing he has to friend is Iruka, and Iruka is a man.

And as for attracting a civilian woman, someone who might not know him – and therefore not detest him – he's just not appealing. He's not muscular, he's thin and weedy. He doesn't go on dangerous missions, and he doesn't have a sparkling personality.

Not to mention it's only polite when you're on a date with someone to _take off your damn sunglasses,_ (a request made by more than one fed up student), and the fact that he won't is a sign of his idiosyncrasies, his not-quite-right-ness, which marks him as just another dysfunctional ninja with no social skills.

No, not even a civilian woman would want him.

And he would rather die than succumb to an arranged marriage.

But if he doesn't get married he'll disappoint his father permanently, and if he manages to do that, well, then he may as well commit suicide, no matter how great a tutor he is.


End file.
